1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a device status monitoring system, a device status monitoring method, and a data storage medium and object program recording the same. More particularly, the invention relates to a device status monitoring system and method that use an OPOS service object to continuously record status change data indicating a change in the status of a device in a POS terminal system to a status change recording unit based on specified recording conditions, and a data storage medium and object program recording the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Multifunction POS (point-of-sale) systems can be assembled without specifically considering the makes and models of devices used to configure the POS system by using a standard application programming interface (API) to develop a software application providing POS system functions. OPOS (OLE for Retail POS) is an international standard defining a standardized interface for handling devices (such as printers and displays) used in the POS terminals (referred to below as POS terminal systems) of a POS system. An OPOS standard object uses OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) controls, which are supported by the Windows (a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.) operating system (OS) running on the host devices of the POS system, to provide application developers with a set of API functions that make application development easier. Note that OPOS standard objects are referred to below as simply “OPOS.”
Information needed to use OPOS, that is, information about all of the devices in the POS terminal system and settings for all of the devices (referred to below as the OPOS device environment configuration), is stored in a database (referred to below as the registry) of system configuration information managed by the Windows OS. This registry is a database for centrally managing all settings related to computer operation, including all device driver settings and application settings. Information about each device in the POS terminal system, including a device identifier and various settings for each device, stored in the registry as part of the OPOS device environment configuration settings is referred to below as the device information or the device profile. In other words, the OPOS device environment configuration settings include a device profile for each device in the system configuration.
Data indicating a change in the status of a device (referred to below as “status change data”) that is reported to the application providing POS terminal system functions through OPOS is conventionally only part of the status change data detected from status data received from a particular peripheral device by the host computer running the application. More specifically, OPOS determines which of the device status change data must be reported to the application, and sends only the necessary status changes to the application. The problem with this is that the application is therefore unable to know all of the device status changes, which makes it difficult to troubleshoot errors and problems in the system or a particular device.
Devices can also use LEDs or other type of display to inform the POS terminal system user or developer, for example, that an error has occurred and even indicate the type of error. In a POS terminal system in which the device and host computer are integrated into a single unit, however, the device status (error) indicator is hidden inside the POS terminal system, and the POS terminal system user or developer cannot easily know what the problem reported by the device is. The device installation (where and how the device is installed) may also make the status display unreadable. The status display may even be eliminated in order to reduce device cost. Because problems with a device cannot be known in real time in these cases, errors cannot be addressed. This means the source of the problem cannot be determined, and it takes longer to resolve problems and restore the device to normal working condition.